Marlin: A whale! Because you asked for help, and now we're stuck here!

Dory: [looking around her] Wow. A whale. You know, I speak whale--

Marlin: No, you're insane! You can't speak whale! I have to get out! [bumps into the whale's baleen] I have to find my son! [bumps again] I have to tell him... [keeps bumping] ...How... old... sea... turtles... are!

Marlin: But, but, dude. How do you know when they're ready (to go out into the real world)?

Crush: Well, you never really know you know, but when they know, you'll know, ya know?

Dory: Have you seen an orange fish swim by? It looks just like him. [points at Nemo]

Nemo: But bigger!

Crab: Yeah, I saw him, Bluey. But I'm not telling you where he went, and there's no way you're gonna make me!

[Dory gives the crab an angry glare, then holds him out of water for the seagulls to see]

Seagull: Mine!

Crab: AAAH! All right! I'll talk, I'll talk! He went to the fishing grounds!

Seagulls: Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!

[Hundreds of seagulls are surrounding Marlin and Dory]

Seagull: Mine?

Nigel: [quiet and controlled] Okay. Don't make any sudden moves. Hop inside my mouth, if you want to live.

Marlin: "Hop in your mouth", huh, and how does... that make me live?!

Seagull: Why?

Nigel: Because I can take you to your son.

Marlin: Yeah, right.

Nigel: No. I know your son. He's small and orange, he has a gimpy fin on one side.

Marlin: [jumping up] That's Nemo!

[The seagulls suddenly attack]

Bloat: Nemo, newcomer of orange and white, you have been called forth to the top of Mount Wannahockaloogie to join with us, in the fraternal bonds... of tankhood.

Nemo: Huh?!

Peach: We want you in our club, kid.

Nemo: Really?

Bloat: IF...you are able to swim through... the Ring... of... Fire! [nothing happens] Turn on the Ring of Fire! The Ring of Fire!

[Jacques suddenly comes to attention.]

Jacques: Sorry!

Bloat: You said you could do this! [Bubbles explode out of the top of Wannahockaloogie Mountain.] The Ring of Fire!

Nemo: Daddy?

Marlin: Oh, thank goodness.

Nemo: Dad, I don't hate you.

Marlin: No, no, no. I'm so sorry, Nemo. Hey, guess what?

Nemo: What?

Marlin: Sea turtles? I met one! And he was 150 years old.

Nemo: 150?

Marlin: Yep.

Nemo: 'Cause Sandy Plankton said they only live to be 100.

Marlin: Sandy Plankton? Do you think I would cross the entire ocean and not know as much as Sandy Plankton!? [Nemo laughs] He was 150, not 100! Who is this Sandy Plankton who knows everything?

Way back during the first beginnings of Toy Story, believe it or not. I was at an aquarium, and I was new to computer graphics, and I remember just looking at the underwater environment and thinking we could mimic this exactly in computer graphics.

So that was on the back burner of my brain all through Toy Story and A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2. I kept thinking about what story I'd want to tell in an underwater setting, and I remembered this dentist's office that I went to as a kid. It had a tank in the lobby, and I used to think about whether those fish wanted to go home, and what it must be like to be in this tacky little tank with a treasure chest, and a scuba diver. All those kind of things.